


Astute

by Emnot



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jon is a hothead, Roald is gonna be a good king, Thayet is a BAMF, my girl Kel is a hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 01:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emnot/pseuds/Emnot
Summary: A letter from Crown Prince Roald, stationed at the Scanran border, was delivered this morning. It is addressed solely to his mother, and she is reading it silently.Jonathan narrows his eyes, setting down his pen. Thayet looks particularly mild. That is never, ever good. He clears his throat. “What news from Roald?” he asks lightly.His lovely, blank, dangerous wife keeps reading. “News,” she says neutrally.— Or, why Kel was never charged with treason. Set during Lady Knight.





	Astute

_Corus, Summer 460_

 

The co-regnants of Tortall have shared a large office in the palace’s royal wing since the day Thayet was crowned. It’s a plain, sunny room, more suited to private work than formal reception. (Thayet had seen its previous set of stained-glass windows, extolling Tortall’s military victories over lesser neighbors. She’d shot Jon a cool look and murmured: “perhaps a less… laudatory setting would remind us of our duty of _service_?” The windows had been removed immediately. Thayet does have a _way_.) 

The king and queen have desks facing one another across the room. Usually correspondence arrives addressed to them both, and they split the burden of reading through pardon requests, classified reports, and other state documents together. If personal letters arrive, one of them will read it aloud to the other. 

But this is not the case today: a letter from Roald, stationed at the Scanran border, arrived this morning. It is addressed solely to his mother, and she is reading it silently.

Jonathan narrows his eyes, setting down his pen. Thayet looks particularly mild. That is never, ever good.

Jonathan clears his throat.

Thayet lowers the letter and looks at him, expressionless. “Yes?”

Oh no.

“What news from Roald?” he asks lightly.

His lovely, blank, dangerous wife raises the letter again and keeps reading. “News,” she says neutrally.

Oh _no_.

“Thayet.” Jonathan’s voice is a rumble. “What. News?”

Thayet sets down the letter and meets his eyes calmly. “Roald appreciates his position at Mastiff, even though Vanget isn’t allowing him to do much.”

“And?”

“He misses Shinkokami and Vania.”

“ _And?”_

“Keladry of Mindelan’s refugee camp was sacked while she was delivering reports to Lord Wyldon two weeks ago, with most of its residents abducted and taken across the border by Scanrans. She elected to pursue them.”

A very strange feeling prickles across Jonathan’s skin.

He likes young Keladry, mostly, although she is disconcertingly immune to what he likes to imagine as his royal charm. She is by all accounts an excellent knight and a disciplined fighter. She’ll command the King’s Own someday, if not the entire army. However. _Elected to pursue —_ “That is treason.”

Thayet is impassive.

“She went alone?”

Thayet glances back down at the letter. “Roald writes that upon learning of her departure, Nealan of Queenscove and four other of their year-mates additionally left Mastiff in the middle of the night.”

“That is _so much_ treason.”

“And Raoul sent a squad of the Own after her as well.”

Jonathan closes his eyes. Raoul. Of course he did. Raoul thinks Keladry is the best thing to happen to the realm since horses. “Does Roald indicate why I have not received word of this in my official correspondence with Wyldon and Vanget?”

Thayet folds her hands neatly on her desk. “It was assumed that you might feel moved to pursue charges of treason, to which Wyldon would object.”

“I would feel moved to pursue charges of _treason_ because she’s committing _treason_ ,” snaps Jonathan.

Thayet says nothing, but the quality of her nothing has a very sharp edge.

“So why is Roald telling me?”

Thayet clears her throat, delicately and unnecessarily. She picks up the letter and reads from it: “… _I guessed Father would hear about this eventually, likely through Uncle George’s contacts, and so I wanted to be the first to let him know that should he choose to prosecute Kel I will absolutely never speak with him again_.”

Jonathan’s eyebrows fly up. He can count on one hand the number of times his eldest son has stood against him.

Thayet hums a bit and continues. “He also says… “ _In such an event, the very best case scenario as regards Lord Raoul is that he would resign, and the more likely case is that he would lead the Own to depose Father._ _Aunt Alanna would help him. Please also remind Father that Baird of Queenscove has already lost two sons in the service of the realm, and hanging his only remaining one is not the best visual for the monarchy._ ” She sets down the letter. “He is astute, our Roald.”

Jonathan grits his teeth. “It’s still _tr_ –“

Thayet interrupts him. “What Roald does _not_ write, because he could not have possibly known, is that if the King decides to press charges of treason against Keladry of Mindelan, the Queen will never speak to the King again either.”

There is a long, unpleasant pause.

Jonathan looks at her. He will never quite know how she can be so beautiful and so absolutely terrifying at the same time.

“Thayet —“

Her voice is quiet and lethal. “Please think back to the year after you told Kalasin she couldn’t be a knight.” She smiles, and it’s like a razor. “I will make that seem like a birthday party.”

The voice in Jonathan’s mind when he’s making decisions about the realm always sounds like George. _Know when you’re beat, my lad_ , it tells him now. Jonathan bows his head. “Yes, my dear.”

The razor-smile widens. “Good,” she says mildly. She draws a fresh sheet of parchment towards her and dips her pen into her inkwell. “I’ll write back and send Roald our love. Anything specific from you?”

Jon sighs. “Tell him he’ll make a good king someday.”

“Only because he’s had _such_ an excellent example to follow, my dear."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The line about what happened with Kalasin is a reference to this:
> 
> https://tpwords.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/couples-spats/


End file.
